The Gathering
by Gunney
Summary: This story was previously part of the vignettes under the title "Good Endings" but has since turned into its own thing. Starsky and Hutch end up undercover as reenactors on either side of a battlefield where reality has taken a sharp turn.
1. Chapter 1

Starsky

"Will you quit squirming."

"I'm itchy. And hot...and this war never even happened out here."

"That's not the point, Starsk. It's about...recreating history."

"You can't recreate a history that never happ-"

"Shh!"

Wool. I hate wool. I haven't got much interest in sheep either. Not only was I forced to wear wool pants, a wool coat, wool vest, wool socks. But it was all dark blue.

Hutch wasn't wearing wool. I can't remember what he called it but it had sounded like jean-something and it was light tan. Given what he was wearing we shouldn't have even been standing together but somehow through the course of the day one of us had taken the other prisoner.

Since I didn't have my gun anymore, I guess I was the captive. My capture had been a setup to give Hutch and I a chance to catch each other up on the case, but that had only taken about two minutes. Once I had a chance to relax it felt like the collar on the jacket was rubbing my neck raw and Hutch insisted that I keep it buttoned to the top, just because I had a few stripes on the sleeves.

The job hadn't been that bad at first, but that had been three days ago. For the most part we were playing along, making connections and waiting for something to happen.

"Starsk, you're supposed to be an officer. Could you at least act like it?"

"If I'm an officer, you can't tell me what to do, sergeant." I sneered, then worked my shoulders until the collar was off my neck and I could feel the barely existent breeze.

"Sure I can, I'm not in your army."

Thirty yards ahead of us a group of younger guys were duking it out like trained stuntmen, throwing punches and jabbing at each other with bayonets. Real bayonets, according to the guy playing General Grant. With sharp pointy ends. When I'd casually asked how many times somebody had to be carted away from one of these things with a bayonet sticking out of him, the short man just laughed and walked away.

Watching them fight now was like watching a bomb being defused. You couldn't look away, no matter how much you didn't want to see the carnage.

"Hey."

"Hm."

"Starsk?"

"What?"

"Prisoner exchange, come on."

A wagon had pulled up, drawn by two scrawny looking mules that looked about as comfortable strapped to the wagon as I was smothered in wool.

The wagon itself was full of ragged, tired looking soldiers all dressed similar to Hutch. On the side I'd chosen, the officers were sticklers about appearance. Other than the occasional unit patch, we were all supposed to look the same. On this side, the side of the enemy, it was anything goes. Some wore the butterscotch colored cloth, some gray, some light blue, some wore bright red pants and blue blousy shirts with a sash. The thing that tied the men together wasn't their uniforms but their attitudes.

I'd spent a few hours around these men, a lot of them real vets or sons of vets, and felt more welcome than I did on my own side.

The confederate soldiers coming back ignored me as they stepped down off the wagon. Most of them were young, some even teenagers, but one old guy sat at the back of the wagon with a grimace on his face.

Hutch climbed up into the wagon bed with another man and helped the old guy to his feet with practiced ease, walking him to the tailgate and helping him down. The other guy took over, walking the old man back towards the tent fly that had been put up for some shade.

"Who's that?"

"Kevin."

"Kevin?"

"Yeah." Hutch said with a fond smile. "Old guy, always comes out to these things, and wanders over to the other side before the battles start in the morning. Past three days he's just showed up on the first prisoner exchange wagon."

While the Rebs loaded the other Yankee prisoners that I'd been captured with into the wagon I watched the old man climb the hill and settle his bones into a canvas sling-back chair. "You talk to him?"

"No. He sat in on the music last night but he keeps to himself." Hutch said, squinting thoughtfully.

"Maybe he knows something." I said.

"Maybe he wants to be left alone." Hutch responded.

"Maybe it's our job to find out." I said.

Hutch thought about it then finally nodded. "There's supposed to be a neutral zone ball tonight. Be a good place to catch up."

"Yeah the dance..." I smirked, the raw irritation around my neck instantly disappearing. "There's suppose to be a lot ladies there from the town."

"Yes, but you have to remember that you're an officer and a gentleman."

"I'd rather be a private and a cad."

"I'm sure you would, dirty Yank."

"Lousy Reb."

"Get up there."

I was the last to board the wagon and therefore the one responsible for holding up the shaky tail gate. We pulled away from the Rebel command center and were soon out of sight of the camp and the battle. The other men in the wagon wanted nothing to do with me and sat in groups of two or three playing with worn cards, sipping out of flasks or trying to sleep on the rocking wagon.

We were miles out of LA, far enough from the city that the sounds and the smog and buzz of modern life was obsolete. There weren't even power lines. Just wide open country and a bunch of guys in wool uniforms, shooting guns at each other.

If it weren't for the wool I might have enjoyed it.

"You there, hold up."

The driver shouted "Ho!" and drew up on the reins somewhere between the two fighting armies. A cloud of dust that had been following us coated each of the prisoners in the back of the wagon with a fine layer, then blew on ahead.

I leaned back so that I could see around the shoulders of a rail thin kid with pimples and squinted at the man dressed in black, standing in the middle of the dirt lane.

"Prisoner transport, Mister." Our driver declared before muttering again to the skittish mules.

"I'm the Reverend George Usher, on my way to conduct Sunday service for General Grant. Could I disturb you for a ride?"

"You didn't _walk_ out this way, did ya Reverend?" The driver joked jerking the hand brake forward, making the wagon a little more stable.

Usher chuckled as he climbed up onto the front seat. He might have been in his forties, with salt and pepper hair and beard. There was something about him that made me uncomfortable.

"No...no I was rather foolish and didn't tie my horse securely earlier. Silly beast ran away the moment your cannons began to fire. I was hoping some young horseman would be willing to catch him up once I arrived in your camp."

"I can deliver you to General Grant, but you don't want to be in my camp, Reverend. Not if you're a friend of the Yanks." The driver said.

"You may not be a friend of the Yankees, but they certainly trust you." Usher responded, looking pointedly back at us.

"It ain't trust so much as an agreement. They give me back my boys whole, and I do the same for them." The driver muttered, releasing the brake and starting the mules.

I watched the trees and shrubs and dirt pass by and listened to the two talk. It was like stepping back in time. The driver had a drawl, straight from the Kentucky hills, teeth missing and tobacco stains in his beard. The men around me smelled of sweat and fire smoke and black powder. The reverend, barely sweating in his black wool frock coat, had the air of self-righteous divinity about him. Maybe he was a preacher in real life. Maybe he was an actor, and played a preacher on TV. Whoever he was in reality, he was 100% the Reverend Usher on the seat of that wagon.

In fact he stayed in character, cheerfully chatting with the driver for another mile before I caught sight of the horse following our wagon. The reins were loose but not dragging, as if the rider had intended for the horse to be able to move without tripping over them. The saddle was still firmly attached and there was a boot for a long rifle, but the gun wasn't there.

"Hey uh..Reverend. Is that your horse back there?"

When he didn't respond I figured he didn't hear me. "Hey Buster!" I shouted, drawing dirty looks from the rest of the men in the wagon. "Reverend...there's a horse back there."

This time I knew he had to have heard me since everybody else had. Still, I was ignored. I was beginning to feel like I just didn't belong in the club. Irritated I decided to take things into my own hands. I dropped the tailgate and slid off the end of the wagon, closing my eyes against the dust and waiting for it to blow past.

The horse stayed where he was and none of the other men in the wagon made a protest. The pimply kid stared at me as the wagon kept trundling on, but I couldn't tell if he was happy or sad to see me go.

"Ok, horse." I said, approaching the animal as casually as possible. "You're going to stand still, and I'm going to walk you back to your owner. Then I'm going to take a nap and you can eat some hay. Sound good?"

I paused about ten feet away, the sole object of the horse's attention. I didn't know if the horse was a girl horse or a boy. How old it was. I couldn't see a brand and didn't know what to call the saddle. But the urge to mount the thing and ride it into camp was strong. I'd grown up watching cowboy movies and riding a broom horse around the neighborhood. Maybe this wouldn't be my last chance to play cowboy, but I couldn't resist making it my first.

The horse seemed calm enough, and stood still letting me put my hand on its nose. I got the reins in hand and slipped them over the horse's ears like I'd seen John Wayne do a hundred times. I had my foot in the stirrup, hands on the saddle and pushed up, swinging my leg out and over.

* * *

Hutch

There had been some accidents but the accidents hadn't been reported by the reenactors.

For the fifth year in a row hundreds of historians and descendants of civil war veterans had been gathering for about a month, setting up their circa-1863 commune and living the lives of soldiers, artisans, and civilians of that time. Outsiders were tolerated but not really welcome and the event had never been advertised anywhere. They called it a gathering, small 'g', and kept it to themselves.

The problem was each year's month of seclusion had ended with unexplained and tragic accidents. The first year, but for a young man losing a finger at the end of a cannon, was a great success. The second year a bayonet fight had gotten out of hand, and one man claimed to have felt a real bullet pass him during a battle.

Captain Weatherly, the reenactor acting as my direct superior, brushed the incidents off as excessive youthful vigor. A bit of drama at the end of a long and trying month. I carefully broached the subject of the incident the third year that ended with an entire unit leaving early, carrying a man on a stretcher who nearly bled to death.

"I'm surprised nobody tried to report it or call an ambulance." I mentioned casually.

"Sergeant Hutchinson…" The captain began before sighing, disappointed in my naivete. "We come here to escape the trappings of the modern world. We have surgeons on each side. That those men chose to ignore the medical help available is their own concern. "

For a long moment Weatherly gazed out over the valley that faced us, scanning the rows of hundreds of tents, each grouped into company streets with a fire at each end.

"As to reporting the incident. It _was_ reported. Those men followed the proper chain of command before they pulled out." The captain's chest puffed out, his chin lifting in pride.

I had intended to ask about the following year. The rumors that a man had died, been buried somewhere in the field and left without a word spoken to family, friends or the police.

Before I could ask, the captain excused himself and hurried away to the command tent. That had been the longest conversation I had been able to get out of the man. After the second day that Starsky had been captured we both agreed that we were quietly being shut out.

Either our cover had been blown or my feeling about this "gathering" was right. We were the outsiders and we hadn't passed muster yet. Asking more questions about the touchy subject wasn't going to get me anywhere good. What we needed was time.

But time here moved at its own pace. And I was afraid that we were going to run out, and the 'gathering' would end before we could get anything solid. The ball tonight would be the first time we had the chance to make direct contact with the civilians that also participated.

A ghost town five miles away from the battlefields had been rebuilt to house civilians, shops, and most importantly, the families, wives and girlfriends of the men on the battlefield. Each weekend the battles ended and the town would host a ball on Saturday evening. Most of the day the commanding officers had been warning the men about the behavior that was expected of them in the town, and that none of them were to be drunk when they returned to camp. It was an unspoken point of honor for most of the men in the ranks to get as drunk as possible on Saturday night, and appear as fresh and sober as possible at the Sunday service the following morning.

By the time the wagons began to arrive to transport the men to the town most had already filled, emptied and refilled the flasks they carried in their breast pockets. The ritual preparation before the dance was one that I recognized from my own brief time in the army and I fell into the rhythm of the men jostling for space in front of a tiny mirror, snagging towels out of the hands of their tent mates and doing everything possible to clean up after a week of sweat, gunpowder and smoke, without benefit of showers.

The uniform I had borrowed came with a blue sash and a frock coat, both of which were only meant to be worn on formal occasions. A fellow sergeant helped me put the accouterments together remarking sarcastically that I couldn't have been a sergeant long, and leaving it at that.

In a drug exchange, a jail cell or a even a honky tonk I might have fit right in. In this world where the men lived and breathed a time most of us knew nothing about, I was sticking out like a sore thumb. If I was sticking out…Starsky was a talented undercover cop, but he had his limits.

The trip to town took an hour. This late in the year the sky had already begun to darken by the time we neared the collection of buildings. No more than a dozen structures, including a tent city, the town was already well populated with soldiers from both sides. Signs around the border of the town declared it a neutral zone and in keeping with the spirit of those signs, none of the men with me had come armed beyond the occasional pocket knife.

Women in hoop-skirts and men in top coats and hats stood around welcoming the soldiers with a spirit of frivolity that was almost Dickensian in nature. A celebration to end all celebrations, except that this was all going to happen again next week.

There were so many men there I knew finding Starsky would take some time. Before long I had a blonde with ringlets and green eyes latched onto me, calling me captain and tittering at everything I said. She dragged me onto the dance floor for the first dance, nothing more than a promenade of men and women around the large open barn that was the centerpiece of the town. Each dance was called by the host or hostess, but for the waltzes. Each was meant as a means for the men to meet as many women in one dance as possible, and vice versa.

For an hour, between diversions to the refreshment table, I danced with Sadie, the blonde, and Darcy, a brunette, and didn't see anything of my partner. The party was to run til midnight, and I knew that some of the men on both sides had to remain in camp on guard. It wasn't until General Grant arrived with his entourage of officers, and without Starsky, who was supposed to have been one of his adjutants, that I started to worry.

Getting to the general was as impossible as getting an impromptu audience with the president of the United States. I had shucked Darcy and was nearly in ear shot when the dance was interrupted by shouts, whoops and shots from outside.

I moved with the flood of the curious, spilling out into the street to see a parade of horsemen entering the town with torches and shotguns brandished. At the center of the column, pulled behind two deputy marshalls was a man in a torn Yankee uniform. His face was covered in blood on one side from a head injury, his uniform torn, and he stumbled blindly behind the horses, wrists tied to two ropes that endeavored to tear his arms from their sockets.

I knew my partner instantly and felt Darcy's hand clamp down on my arm in the same moment that I started to charge forward.

"Don't, handsome." She said with a pronounced drawl, her voice down low.

I swallowed around the bile that was rising, watching Starsky lose his footing and go down on his knees in the dirt only to be dragged back to his feet. "Don't? That man's gonna be killed."

Darcy shook her head eyes fixed dazedly on my partner, wet with tears, and terrified. "Anybody who interferes with the marshall will be too."

I shoved Darcy's hand from my arm and snapped, "This is ridiculous."

The crowd that had been rowdy, cheerful and vibrant minutes before had begun to fall into a frozen hush as the parade came to a stop in front of a false fronted structure labeled Justice Hall. The provost marshall and his men had begun to dismount, oblivious to their audience. Just as the marshall did nothing to explain the condition of my partner, no one in the crowd did anything to stop the armed men.

Perhaps the only armed men in the town, I realized.

By the time I fought my way through the crowd of stiff-armed onlookers the marshall, his men, and their prisoner had disappeared into Justice Hall, slamming the door shut behind them. I stepped away from the crowd and found myself in an open space that felt like a canyon, all eyes staring at me, or past me at the closed double doors. I turned, lost in the looks of panic, fear, regret, shame, acceptance. The faces of humanity facing its own foibles without the courage to do anything about it.

Disgusted I went to the door and stepped into a narrow lobby with doors branching off to both sides of the room, and a set of open double doors leading into what looked like a court room.

My entrance stopped the near silent proceedings. The provost marshall had been climbing into the chair at the head of the room, slipping into a black robe. Two of his men stood on either side of my partner, holding him up by his biceps in a witness box. The other three had been gathered in a corner of the room, standing next to a man dressed in a reverend's frock.

One of Starsky's eyes was swelling shut, his lip puffing out on the same side and bleeding. His shirt and pants were torn showing bruised skin and bloody gashes. I'd never before see what a man looked like after being dragged behind a horse, but I knew instinctively that they had done just that to my partner. When he was finally able to focus on me I caught the unswollen side of his mouth curving up in a smile that disappeared behind a wince.

"The courtroom is closed to the public, sergeant." The marshall called, his tone businesslike and cold.

"Oh this is a courtroom is it?" I retorted, furious. "I suppose that makes you the judge."

"Who I am is none of your concern. Bailiff, remove that man."

One of the deputy marshalls gathered in the corner started toward me, his gun still held across his chest and pointed at the ceiling. Before he got too far the man in the reverend's frock raised his hand and said, "Marshall, it would seem that the case against the young lieutenant is lopsided. If the sergeant wishes to advocate, let him."

"You people are insane. I'm not going to advocate, I'm going to take that man to a doctor and then to the police."

The moment I said it I saw Starsky's head shake, a flash of warning entering his good eye before his chin dropped to his chest.

The marshall considered me for a moment, chewing on what had to have been a wad of tobacco stuffed into his mouth. The court was silent, the men not moving, speaking, barely breathing. From the moment he had entered the town the marshall had been the puppet master of mindless robots.

When he finally sat, the grotesque play began, regardless of my presence.

"This man was caught stealing a horse. The reverend there observed him stealing the animal...and horse theft is a capital offense."

"So you beat him?"

"His punishment will be decided once the particulars of the incident have been thoroughly explored."

"You tied him and dragged him behind a horse!" I shouted, convinced I was surrounded by malfeasants that had lost their minds. "That's not punishment enough?"

"His injuries were the result of his attempt at evading the law, sergeant."

"You're no law." I breathed, my heart pounding out my chest. "You're a freak in a costume."

The marshall leaned back in his chair and spat on the floor, considering me for a moment while he chewed. "That uniform you're wearing used to mean something, son. Why should the passage of a little time make its meaning any less important?"

The question echoed around the room as I started down the center aisle, heading straight for my partner. None of the marshall's men stopped me, waiting for their commander to guide their every move.

Up close I could smell the blood on him, could see the sweat and the dirt caked on his cheeks. To my surprise his breathing was steady despite the quake his arms. The men holding him stared at me stoned faced until, barely audible, the marshall said, "Let him go."

Both men released Starsky and I slid my arms under his as he drifted forward.

"And put both of them in the jail. Justice can wait til after the sabbath, can't it, Reverend?"

I tried to pull one of Starsk's arms over my shoulder but he tensed the minute I moved his wrist, his face contorting. "Hang on, buddy. Hang on."

I decided on a shoulder carry, but there were so many gashes on his chest, there wouldn't be a way of carrying him without making it worse.

One of Starsky's hands had found its way to my shoulder and his fingernails were digging into the cloth, twisting it and pulling the collar tighter against my neck. I was trying to help but I was only making it worse for him. There wouldn't be a gentle way of carrying him I realized, and bent to hoist him over my shoulder.

"No.." Starsky said through gritted teeth. "Just go."

"I'm not leaving."

"You don't understand. This isn't LA. You gotta get outta here."

"I'm not going anywhere." I said firmly, staring at the eye that Starsky could keep fully open until it closed in acceptance.

"Can you walk?" I asked and Starsky nodded, shuffling one foot forward, then the other until he could step down out of the witness box.

I started the both of us toward the double doors feeling like I was walking in a dream world. One arm was wrapped around Starsky's chest, the other hand dug into his waist band, keeping him upright without hurting him. We were flanked by the deputy marshalls until we reached the door and they had to step to the side and let us through first.

Neither of us spoke a word, but I went back and Starsky went forward in the same moment. My elbow crashed into the bridge of a nose and Starsky lunged for one of the double doors, swinging it shut and into the face of the other deputy. I had a gun barrel in my hand when it went off. I ignored the sound and the burn of the barrel and shoved the stock into the broken nose twice before the man fell back into the room.

By the time I had the second door closed, Starsky had found a flag stand and was threading the thin worked iron through the door handles.

"That's not going to hold 'em for long." I said, ducking under Starsky's arm and dragging him upright.

His teeth ground together, his body stiff, but he moved with me, helping me get the both of us out the door. The streets beyond it were deserted again, the crowd focused on the dance as if nothing had happened.

As if a man claiming to be a marshall, dragging a half-dead man into town behind a horse and holding a shotgun trial was perfectly normal.

Anger flashed through me and I searched the street for a wagon, a horse, anything that could get the two of us out of town quick.

I didn't expect to see Darcy and Sadie hiding at the corner of the building. Watching them together I could instantly see that they were related. Sadie was waving us over and Darcy was watching the street and the alley beside the Justice Hall.

I had no reason to trust or distrust them, but at the moment had no other choice. We followed the girls down the alley, moving as quickly as Starsky could manage.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**The Gathering Part II**

Sadie

It was Darcy's idea. She was the passionate one. The one that took the bull by the horns and threw herself blindly into anything and everything. She'd watched the blonde haired Reb storm into Justice Hall, despite her warning, and knew that he was the man that would get the both of us out of this hell.

With the marshall and his men inside there was no one to watch us at the back windows of Justice Hall, or to tell us to mind our own business and leave well enough alone. Darcy squeaked when she saw the blonde one take hold of the shot gun and not even flinch when the cold metal turned red hot. I knew what she was thinking when they stumbled out onto the boardwalk.

We would help him, so that he could help us.

Once the men were headed our way Darcy had me run ahead to our tent. We'd been living in a house up until a year ago. That was when I had refused to go to bed with the marshal and Darcy had slapped his face in front of the whole town. We'd tried to leave that same day but a buggy and a single horse can only go so far, so fast.

No one knew the marshall had a dirt bike. Anything motorized had been outlawed in the town since it was built, it didn't even occur to us that the marshall...the man who built the town and set the rules, would also be the only one to break them. That's when Darcy and me started to realize what other rules he'd been breaking. Not rules...laws...that we used to consider our laws..our constitution...our country. What had started out as a dream, a chance to turn back time and live simply, had turned into a nightmare.

I ran ahead to the tent we shared and stoked the fire, adding more wood, lighting a lantern inside the tent and making up the cot. The blonde sergeant would want us to help him nursemaid the wounded man. The more we helped him the more likely he was to help us.

This was the plan. And it was going to work this time.

I tried not to dream while I worked, setting out what little we had in the way of supplies and dumping coffee grounds into a pot. I rushed out to the fire and moved the stew pot away from the flames, setting the coffee pot there instead.

Would I soon be making coffee over a stove? In a caraffe? Would I just go down to the neighborhood coffee shop and buy it, paper cup, plastic lid and all?

No, Sadie, no more dreams. Not until you're free. Not until you're out.

But once the work was done, and those few dead moments remained, I could only dream of what the city looked like now, five years later.

* * *

Starsky

"Almost there, Starsk."

"Almost where?"

My partner didn't respond and I tried not to let that bother me. Neither one of us knew where this girl was leading us. Recent events had caused me to be ten times more paranoid than I'd ever been before and I had my ears, the only part me not presently swelling, tuned to every snap of a twig.

It was easier to focus on the little things, like twigs snapping, bushes rustling, the swish of the brunette girl's skirt over the grass, Hutch breathing. The big things, the pain, the fear that I still felt ramping my heartbeat up, choking me like a fist down my throat any time I considered how far we were from the city. From the Torino. From any means of calling for help.

Hutch and I frequently had to ask ourselves who we could trust. In that moment I would have said, "Nobody" and had no regrets.

When we finally left the woods there was a bright fire, a blonde angel in a pink dress, a warm tent and soft blankets. Hutch tried to get me to lie down on the cot but I fought him, knowing there was more to the story than the cuts on my chest and legs. It only took one shake of my head for him to catch on and he knelt on the ground in front of the cot, letting me lean my head against his chest.

I felt his voice rumble in his throat as he coached the girls...Sadie and Darcy, through what he needed.

I didn't want to be awake anymore. I didn't want to be conscious for all the things that Hutch had planned. I was tired of feeling. And damn it all...the wool was still itchy.

* * *

Sadie

They knew each other. At first Darcy had been sure that the two were total strangers, but the way the one leaned on the other I knew they were more...much more...than strangers. While Darcy fished through her medicine chest for the aspirin powder, the carbolic and the alcohol, I stepped in and gingerly tried to help the Yankee out of his uniform coat. The moment I touched him, he yanked his hand away.

"Starsky..it's okay. She's gonna help ya." The blonde man muttered, but the Yankee shook his head and mumbled something I couldn't make out.

Whatever he'd said, in seconds he'd managed to make the blonde man go white. They were quiet for a moment. A heavy silence that made even Darcy stop what she was doing and look up.

It was the same horrible silence that had fallen the night Walter had died a year ago. He'd not been one of us...but we'd come to love the life that spilled out of him each Saturday night. When he'd been shot there'd been the same bustle, the same rush to stop the blood, warm the body, soothe the soul.

Then that horrible silence. "The hush of death's angel" Darcy had called it. I thought for a moment that the Yankee had died.

"I'll do it. I'll do it, Starsk, ok?" The blonde man said finally and I felt my lungs release when I saw the dark, curly head nod. "Girls...I'll do it."

It seemed like there was more he wanted to say, but couldn't. Darcy nodded, stacked the things she'd gathered on the end of the cot, and shut the flaps of the tent to give them privacy.

* * *

Hutch

I didn't know which had been more cruel.

That the marshal had taken a stick to my partner's back before dragging him by his wrists into town, or that the bastard had made Starsky put his coat back on over the raw wounds to hide the damage from the Saturday night crowd.

Those two thoughts hovered in my mind under the mechanics of cleaning up the mess. It took us twenty minutes to figure out how to get the shirt off, clean up the wounds on his legs and chest and find a position in which he could be comfortable and allow me to get at the damage on his back.

There wasn't a lot of blood. The skin hadn't been broken in too many places but there were welts an inch wide, and a centimeter thick, that glistened against the light from the lantern.

Starsky told me the marshall had done it with a riding crop, which meant that the man had been close. Close enough to see every detail of the damage he'd been doing while he did it.

Cleaning the wounds meant picking threads of wool away that had stuck to the welts, running hot water and alcohol over his back, and doing it all as quickly as possible because there was no other way of saving him the pain.

"Hutch…"

"Yeah, Starsk."

"I'm glad you're here."

It took me a moment to swallow, then I said. "Me too, buddy." My hand went automatically to the sweat-flattened curls on his head and I heard him sigh as soon as I made contact.

I warned him before I laid a linen bandage over the wounds, then pulled the blankets over him, asking after each layer if he was comfortable. By the second blanket he was snoring. I added a third, gathered the used supplies, and left the tent.

The girls were sitting by the fire, Darcy staring at the flames, Sadie staring at me. Starsky had wanted the girls to leave because he didn't want them to see. Not because of his own pride, but because he hadn't wanted to upset them. A man like that didn't deserve what that bastard in town had done.

The longer that Sadie stared at me I realized she understood the look on my face. Far too well.

Darcy stood and took the supplies from my hands and Sadie poured me a cup of fresh coffee. The smell and taste that had been like a fresh breath of heaven before was now bitter and tasted like bile. I drank it anyway.

Sadie poured coffee and rum into two cups then offered to freshen mine and I held out my cup without hesitation. The rum was good, the coffee improved.

"We should try to get him to drink some of this." I said, gesturing over my shoulder.

"I can do it." Darcy offered, but I stopped her.

"Not now. Let him sleep."

I watched the fire, feeling the rum seep into my bones, letting my desire to rip a new hole in the marshall's head go numb. Revenge would feel good, but it couldn't happen while my partner was hurting. Somewhere too, there would be a part of me reasoning that revenge wasn't the answer at all. That I had a job to do, and accomplishing _that_ would be the true revenge. For now I could afford to ignore that part.

"Who-" Sadie spoke, breaking the silence and drawing my attention. She'd taken a seat on a handwoven rug that had been laid near the fire, pulling her legs against her chest in a way that seemed to defy the hoop I could have sworn she'd been wearing. She looked cold and vulnerable. I realized a second later that they had probably given all their blankets to me.

"Who?" I asked, softening my face a little.

"Who _are_ you guys?"

"Just a couple of guys." I said quietly, burying the answer in the rum-soaked coffee.

"No." Sadie said, shaking her head. "'Just a couple of guys' don't bust out of the Justice Hall surrounded by deputy marshalls with guns."

Without warning Darcy grabbed at my hand, reminding me that I had a minor burn there. I winced and finally took the time to look at it, then jumped when Darcy slapped a cloth soaked with cold water into my palm.

"'Just a couple of guys' don't walk away from a gun fight with only a burn." She said, one hand on her hip, lips pursed.

* * *

Sadie

I could tell Darcy liked him. She only gave a man the time of day when she was willing to put up with his presence. If her temper flared, it meant something a little more serious.

I watched the blonde guy carefully, relaxing a little when he gave a crooked smirk to Darcy, then closed his hand around the cold cloth. I couldn't tell for sure, because it was so dark, but I think he might have blushed a little. He was too much of a gentleman to say it, but I got the feeling he had underestimated us a little.

He sipped from his coffee cup then set it down and wiped at the palm of his hand with the cloth, obviously thinking about something else. When he finally looked up his face had changed. Suddenly he was serious, businesslike.

"You two saved our lives back there." He said, making eye contact with both of us in turn before he said, "You've gone out of your way to help me and my partner, and I appreciate it."

There was a 'but' coming. I could feel it and my heart sank to my knees. I didn't want to hear it and I started to stand.

"If what I tell you gets to anyone else in this "gathering"...your efforts will have been wasted."

Darcy crossed her arms, wrapping her palms against her waist and pursed her lips. "What about a deal? We want outta here. Out of this town. Out of this hell. Back to LA. From there, me and Sadie can make it on our own. You get us out and we'll do everything we can to help you."

It spilled out into the open like a cup of tacks, the whole of our hopes and dreams laid out at the feet of a total stranger. A stranger who could have been a spy for the marshall for all we knew. Before my mind could run rampant with theories about how the marshall would punish us this time for our disloyalty, the blonde Reb said, "Deal."

He finished his coffee, and stared into the empty cup. "I'm Detective Sergeant Ken Hutchinson. That's my partner David Starsky in there. We're undercover cops."

Neither of us could speak for a long breath. Somehow the blo- the detective seemed to expect us to react that way and he sat waiting quietly for us to catch up. I could only smile softly when Darcy snapped her lips closed and said, "Prove it."

Ken gave a wry smile and said, "I can't, unfortunately. Part of our cover required that we leave our badges in a safe place. We couldn't carry them on us."

Darcy's look didn't change.

"We came here based on rumors from a friend of a cop at our precinct. We expected to find pranksters and equipment malfunctions. Not...Nazi Germany."

Darcy softened a little and finally bent to grab the detective's empty cup. She reached for the pot and poured a half measure of coffee, then shuffled toward me, her hand stretching out for the rum bottle.

"I don't need anymore." Ken said and Darcy smiled, her voice matronly.

"This is for young David in there." She said, then handed him the cup.

Ken reached out and took Darcy's wrist, lifting her hand from its perch on her hip and squeezing it.

"Thank you. Both."

* * *

Hutch

It didn't take much to wake my partner. I'd barely said his name before he mumbled something incoherent and tried to turn over. I put my hand against the back of his neck and quietly ordered him to stay put until he stopped moving.

"Got something for ya."

"What is it?"

"Here, smell."

Starsky grunted softly then peered at the steaming cup and sniffed. "Smells like coffee."

"With an added, special ingredient."

With his eye swollen shut, Starsky's depth perception was off a little. It took a few tries for him to get a good grip on the coffee cup but once he had it in his hand he was able to drink the cocktail in a few gulps.

My heart sparked with hope when he gave a satisfied groan.

"What are you grinning at?"

"Nothin'..." I said, not even realizing that I had grinned.

"Hey, c'mere a minute."

Starsky's eyes had closed, but his hand had escaped the blankets, searching for mine.

"What?" I asked, hooking my thumb against his and curling my fingers around the back of his hand.

"I don't.." Starsky began, then stopped, wincing. A moment later I realized it wasn't the physical pain that had caused it.

"Don't tell anybody."

"Starsky…"

"Hutch." Starsky's hand closed sharply against mine and his good eye popped open again to focus on me. "Just you and me." He said, his voice slurred but his tone coherent. "Not the girls. Not Dobey. Nobody knows." Starsky swallowed and a line of salt water appeared between the swollen lids of his closed eye. "Promise me." He said, his voice dropping to whisper.

I matched his grip and promised with every part of my being. "No one's gonna know." I said.

Starsky's good eye closed and he hung onto me for a few more moments, the muscles in his jaw working quietly. I watched the tension bleed out of him, felt his grip relax against my hand.

"One more thing."

"Yeah, Starsk."

"Can I have another cup?"

"Yeah." I said, grabbing the tin cup from the cot and starting to stand.

"Hey, Hutch."

"Yeah?"

"Just the special ingredient."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Sadie

We sat by the fire recounting the last five years of our lives to the detective. He barely interrupted, listening intently and only stopping us to ask poignant questions. Little of what we said seemed to phase him, and I began to wonder if the outside world really was safer than the gathering.

"How much time do you spend out at the camps?"

Darcy and I exchanged a look. "We never go to the camps. The women who do, can't come back."

"There's only one reason to visit those soldiers." Darcy said.

That gave the sergeant pause and he stared at us. "Prostitution. Here?"

We nodded and Ken asked, "What do the soldiers use for payment?"

"Anything really. Whiskey, rum, food. Anything from the outside. For some of the girls it's worth it to have the convenience of toilet paper, even at the risk of the marshall or his men rousting them from the camps and turning them out."

"Turning them out?"

We nodded.

"To the wilderness." Darcy said.

"Wait...someone...breaks the rules in his town and the marshall's response is to banish them?"

Darcy's chin fell against her chest and she studied the ground quietly. I knew what she was thinking but I waited for her to tell him.

"That's what he says he does." She began. "...but I think he kills them. Or worse." Tears were sparkling in Darcy's eyes when she looked up again. "I made a skirt for a friend of mine, the first year I was here. She came out and lived with us a while, but she fell in love with a soldier and they wanted to get married. She went out to see him every night and she got caught. We were told that they were both banished, and we thought...we thought that meant they went back to the city. That they just couldn't come to the gathering anymore."

Darcy swallowed but the tears had already begun to pearl on her cheeks. "A week later the marshal's girl had on the same skirt I made for my friend. I'd worked so hard on it, I knew it by heart."

"Were you ever able to find a body? A grave? Anything?"

Darcy shook her head.

"What happened last year?"

Darcy and I looked at each other, surprised that the sergeant knew about it, even to ask.

"A man was killed. At the Saturday night dance." I responded, suddenly feeling guilty, as if I had been the one to pull the trigger.

"The "marshal" has a gun ordinance in place, I hardly think he'd let that go without some form of retribution."

"The marshal pulled the trigger." I said, feeling the words leave me like a curse. "He accused Walter of stealing a horse, just like your friend there. At first, we….we thought it was a gag. Something new and interesting that the marshal had worked up to bring a little drama into things."

"But the bullets weren't fake?"

We shook our heads in unison.

"The...the guy in the black frock coat. The reverend. Was he there last year?"

Before either of us could answer, a weary voice spoke from behind the sergeant. "Oh..he was there. Playing the same game he played this time around."

Ken was on his feet before Darcy or I could think to move, supporting his partner, his hands clasped around the Yankee's biceps. I couldn't remember his last name, but his first name was the same as my brother, David. I hadn't seen David since my first year at the gathering and I very suddenly wanted to do everything in my power to help this David escape.

Darcy moved to shift the hot water pot back over the flames and started digging in her box of herbs. I took a step toward the two men, wanting to help Dave onto the log his partner had been perched on most of the night, but Ken waved me away.

By the time he was settled, a blanket wrapped loosely over his shoulders, the water in the pot was boiling and Darcy had a cup of leaves ready. She tipped a jigger's worth of whiskey into the cup as well then handed it to Dave.

For a long moment both men stared at us, jaws hanging open.

"What?" Darcy finally demanded.

Ken and David exchanged a look so much like those that Darcy and I used that I had to smile.

"We've just...been stumbling around blind trying to play at living like it was the mid-1800s and the two of you...you don't even flinch." Ken explained, before he leaned toward the steaming cup in his partner's hand.

David pulled it away before Ken could get a whiff, and blew at the steam before taking a sip. I giggled at the look David gave Darcy, knowing that most people weren't accustomed to the taste of herbs steeped in hot water, at least without a sweetener.

Darcy bent to return the water pot to the S-hook hanging over the fire and sat. "You get used to it quickly when you don't have a choice."

"I heard some of what you said." David told us, his eyes a little brighter now that he had whiskey in his system. "You've put up with more than most women could handle."

"Nothing more than our ancestors did." Darcy said, suddenly surly. "But none of them did it without sleep."

"Oh...I'm sorry." Ken started, but Darcy put her hand up to stop him.

"It's been a long night, and tomorrow is going to be longer. Sadie and I usually sleep in shifts anyway. It's a blessing to have two more people around, even if they are keeping us awake."

"I won't anymore, I promise." Ken said.

"Tent is all yours, ladies." David said.

* * *

Hutch

I waited, staring at the fire until the ladies had settled into the tent and blown out the lantern. The night sounds around us seemed louder now that I wasn't digging as much as I could out of Sadie and Darcy.

I glanced at my partner. The eye that had swollen shut was closest to me but I could see the lashes of the other eye flickering lazily beyond the bridge of his nose. He was awake, staring at the same fire I was staring at, but miles away.

"I thought I would ride the damn thing into camp. Be a real hero." Starsky said finally.

I shifted enough so that I could lean back against the log with my elbows propped, and said nothing.

"I knew better. I knew I had no business riding a horse, no business jumping off that wagon. But I was getting dirty looks all around and we had to find a way in...I figured-" Starsky shrugged his left shoulder, grunted softly, then took in a careful breath. "Get the horse, return it to the reverend, prove myself to a couple of those guys, and I'd have bragging rights for a day or two."

The side of Starsky's mouth curved up in a wry grin, but there was little mirth in my partner.

"No sooner had I settled my butt in the saddle, and the marshal and his men came tearing around the corner. They terrified the horse. It took off. I held on." The aloof tone bled out of Starsky's voice and his face tensed, his eyes no longer roaming but staring dead ahead.

"I heard the marshal shout, 'Horse thief.' And I thought, 'How can I steal something I can't even control?' They caught up with me, dragged me outta the saddle, yanked off my coat and tied me to a tree." Starsky drained his cup in one gulp then stared at the empty tin until I took it from him.

I sat up, and got to my feet to fill it again, if not with hot water, than with the whiskey. With his hands free, Starsky touched his own face, testing the swelling around his eye and the edges of the cut just above it.

"It's different, when somebody's hittin' ya because he wants something else. Money, names, freedom. You know there's an end goal. All you have to do is give in...and it'll stop."

Starsky took the cup when I offered it to him, but hesitated to drink. I sipped from mine, sitting down on his good side so that I could see him, and he could see me.

"When he's hitting you because he enjoys it. Because its-" Starsky's voice cut off, and his lips tightened.

"He enjoyed it, Hutch." Starsky dragged a hard breath into his lungs. "H-he took his time. He stood...behind me and narrated...Told me how long he'd been perfecting the art. He told me what my back looked like. What it was going to look like in a day. Two days. A week. He knew because he'd done it before."

Starsky swallowed and a pool of liquid gathered in his good eye then fell. "I couldn't move. I couldn't fight. I did this…" He said finally, pointing at the cut over his eye. "I smashed my head against that tree until it bled, hoping that if I was unconscious…" Starsky's voice dropped. "...he would stop."

"I'm sorry." I tried to say it louder than the hoarse whisper that I'd managed, but my voice was twisted in a knot.

Starsky shook his head, no more than a centimeter. "You couldn't have known. If it had been you, and not me, _I_ couldn't have known." Starsky fought for a moment, jaw tense, eyes welling with what he couldn't hold back. He swallowed and said, "I was scared. I was hurting." He cleared his throat and swiped at the wetness on his face, then finally tipped the whiskey in his cup into his mouth.

"The reverend stopped it." He said, and shot me a sideways glance. A puff of air came out of him, a pale reflection of a laugh. "By then I couldn't tell if it was an act, some bizarre part of the plan or...or if he'd really seen enough."

"What do you want to do?"

Starsky blinked, then stared at me with his good eye, surprised by the question.

"Get the hell out." He said at first, then wiped at his cheek and said, "Get those girls, and head west and ask the army to bomb this place off the map."

We were quiet long enough for the fire to dim and start shooting sparks. I tossed a few split logs on the coals and they caught readily.

"Why don't we bomb it ourselves?"

"What?"

"We got cannons five miles that way. Plenty of black powder. There are small battalions of men that go out every three days to hunt, so you know they have live ammunition."

"Hutch...you're talkin' crazy. Or your drunk."

"As far as he's concerned, the "marshal" is the supreme authority out here, right? He probably bought the town or laid a claim to the land. He's no more a real marshal than I am a real Confederate soldier. We're all fakes here. But the marshal has been doing his damnedest to make it real. So...why don't we lend him a hand?"

"Because there are at least fifty innocent civilians living in that town." Starsky said, his voice picking up in volume.

"So we move 'em."

"Aw you are crazy."

"Think about it, partner. With his dirt bike and his goons and his guns the marshal can afford to spend whole days chasing down deserters and horse thieves as long as there's only one, or two. If the whole town breaks the law... "

"We're practically fugitives." Starsky protested, enunciating each word. "I can hardly sit up straight, and we're free only because of two girls, who are also now fugitives, that took pity on us."

"Two girls that know thirty girls who would be just as willing to help if they thought they had a fighting chance." The statement came from the tent, and I recognized the tenor of Sadie's voice right away.

"The men out on that battlefield are there, Starsky, because they want to honor the memory of their forefathers. They're living that history because it means something to them. You don't think they'll be rip roarin' ready to tear the marshal and his sick little town apart given half the chance?"

"Rip roarin'?"

"Go ahead and mock, Starsk. This is our one chance to do what we always wished we could but didn't, because we were in a city full of eyes and ears. It took a year for news of a cold blooded murder to reach our precinct. We're never gonna get the kind of evidence we need to put this guy away. Not before all of us die of old age."

Starsky's face flushed and he swayed a little. I caught his elbow and steadied him. He slipped from the log to the ground, then grabbed for my sleeve and held onto me until the spinning stopped. "What...what are we talkin' about here, Hutch? What-"

"We're gonna run the marshal out of his own town."

"Like in the movies?"

"Better than the movies."

"You're sure this isn't getting in over our heads?"

"No that's...that's probably what this is."

Starsky's teeth appeared. He was still dazed, wiped out by the conversation, which wasn't going to bode well for my plan. But the smile on his face was genuine.

"But sometimes we're good at that, right?"

"Yeah, sometimes, Starsk."

"Can we take a nap first?"

"Might be a good idea."

"Oh, good." Starsky said, his forehead coming to rest against my sternum. I held onto him until started to breathe evenly, then started to plan.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Gathering Part IV**

Starsky

I watched my partner work from the perspective of the stool I'd been given once we returned to the camps. He was brilliant and absolutely on fire, mouth working so fast he was tripping over his words half the time. It was the kind of endearing, sweet talk that won him lady after lady in the final stretch. It worked on living historians, too.

We'd gone to the Yankee side, mostly because it was a mile closer, and because Hutch wasn't so sure about Captain Weatherly's loyalties. General Grant, the commanding general on the Yankee side, also went by the name Wyatt Sumner. He was the one that had reported the rumors of murder, and the incidents before it. We both agreed he was the best place to start.

The girls had come with us, but shied away from the main camps and found a place hidden in a grove of trees to set up their camp.

I'd been half-asleep when they started to pack everything they owned, but I remembered the fascinating whirl of skirts and faces and canvas. It couldn't have taken them more than a half hour to pack the tent, food, supplies, blankets, clothes, put out the fire and declare themselves ready. Everything on their backs.

I remember Sadie giving me a shy smile, adjusting the thick canvas straps of the bag she carried on her back. "We move our camp once a week, to stay out of the marshal's way. You get real good at it, after a while."

I'd given her a smile that might have seemed a little grotesque. I couldn't tell because I hadn't seen my face yet. But Sadie had smiled back, real big and done me more good than any of that nasty tea could do.

I spent most of the four mile trudge back to the camps focused on two things; putting one foot in front of the other, and getting Sadie to smile again. I managed both, but not having the girls in the camp seemed like a cheat. Darcy had said something about the marshal having eyes and ears beyond the range of a normal human person, then they'd left us in the middle of a field, a hill away from the camps, and disappeared into the morning mist.

And I'm not being dramatic. There really was mist.

By the time Hutch and I struggled into camp, after a two hour walk that hurt like no other, it took only twenty minutes for Grant a.k.a. Sumner, to gather his officers together and start the ball rolling.

Very few of them seemed concerned about the legality of what Hutch was proposing. I started to wonder just how long it took for a modern American citizen to shuck his loyalties, shift his sense of morality, and become like the men I saw gathered around my partner. Independent, questioning, suspicious...and possessing a sense of right and wrong that we saw abused everyday on the job.

Outside of the bugs, and the heat and the sweat and the damned wool, I began to see the attraction of spending just one month of every year away from the confusing shades of gray of the modern world.

"We have live ammunition yes, and we could find a way to rig some charges, but there's no way of knowing what we're coming up against. No one's considered bracing the marshal before now." Sumner was saying, somehow towering over the officers surrounding him even though he was a foot shorter. "Captains Jason and Towers were in the Navy, and we have a sergeant who was a Marine, but these are older men, and the rest are boys, Sergeant."

"You men….all of you, both armies. You're free to leave whenever you like, yes?" Hutch asked.

The men around him nodded, focused intently on my partner.

"You may not have rounds for every man among you but you're a big enough threat to the marshal that he hasn't tried yet to control your coming and going. He's smart enough to know that enough of you, working together, would trounce him. Tell me something...who set up the prisoner exchange, hmm?"

"It's been happening since the beginning." Sumner said, checking for looks of agreement among the officers.

"And other than the dance, do men from either side ever have reason to exchange information, talk, communicate freely?"

"We don't really talk to each other at the dances. It's always about the girls." A captain said, scratching at the back of his neck with his left hand. I noticed a wedding band and cleared my throat.

"You're married, Captain uh...Steiner? Your wife. Where does she stay?"

"She didn't come this year. We're having a baby and she couldn't make the gathering, but normally she'd be in town with the rest."

"And she's never mentioned anything strange?"

Steiner shrugged. "Last year she said that one of the marshal's deputies was getting a little fresh, but it was reported to the marshal and he dealt with it."

"I'll bet I know how he did it, too." I said, prompting Hutch to glance at me before he picked up my line of thought.

"Think back, all of you. To the first time you came to the gathering. To the first thing about it that seemed wrong, off. About the town, the marshal."

The men around us were quiet, thinking and flashing guilty looks toward their commanding general.

"The thing keeping all of you safe from that maniac is your numbers. He can't possibly handle all of you, not with the men and the guns he has. But those people in town don't have that advantage. They can't run fast enough, or hard enough, to get free of him. And if they do...they can't very well get help."

"Who would believe them?" I added.

"Alright, sergeants, you can step down from the soap box. I think we all see the situation for what it is. What are you suggesting we do?"

"I don't know much about this...hobby, but I do know that you men are brilliant at military tactics. You know your weapons, your abilities, your maneuvers, better than anybody else I've ever met. The only thing that is going to change is the objective. So...you tell me. How do we get those civilians to safety and run that marshal and his men out of town?"

The men fell to deliberating, producing a map of the area that had been hand drawn by their own cartographers. I watched, fascinated at how quickly they took to the task and realized that despite the uniforms, despite the tactics, despite the guns, most of these men probably weren't soldiers.

They were bank clerks, cashiers, construction workers, taxi drivers. Outside of this one month a year they had real jobs, real lives, families...a place in the modern world that they tolerated, because they knew this one month of freedom was coming.

We were asking a lot of them. Like walking out on any street in the city, handing billy clubs and saps to every man on the street and shouting, "Charge!" Had that been any different than shoving hundreds of 18-year-old's from all over the states into a single transport and telling them to police a country they'd never been to in their lives?

What was the difference? What was the one thing that made us forget who these men, or boys, had been, and caused us to rely on who they appeared to be now?

"It's the uniform." I said, glancing to Hutch as he sat beside me. "Take a hundred guys off the street and put 'em in a line and hand them guns. No one would expect them to go out and start saving lives. But you put them all in the same uniform...instantly you think you have an army, of competent soldiers, capable of winning a war."

"It's called the authority principle."

"What?"

"Authority principle. A total stranger, a homeless man in street clothes is a nobody, possibly a threat. Put that same vagabond in a...a police uniform, cut his hair, shave his beard. He's no more qualified to stop a robbery than he was before, but people will listen to whatever he tells them, because he's wearing the uniform. He may even begin to believe _he's_ a police officer."

I thought for a long moment then said, "So who was the marshal, before he put on a tin star, bought a town and ruled it with an iron gun?"

"And who is the reverend…" Hutch said.

"Who's _not_ a reverend." I glanced away from the circle of officers and looked over the rows of tents populated by men finishing their morning routine. "An entire community of pretenders."

"And these guys are only here for _one_ month." Hutch said then stood, working his way into the circle of authority principles in action.

It took an hour for the officers to decide on the beginnings of a plan. As soon as they had an idea of what was going on a runner was ordered to the general's tent with two horses. One for the runner, and one for Hutch. They were to cross the two mile gap between the camps and bring a signed document from General Grant that explained the situation, his reason for becoming involved, and a proposal...for peace.

It felt a little like we were ending the civil war ourselves, as the captains were dismissed to their units with their orders in hand.

"You gonna be alright here?" Hutch asked, standing so casually by the horse he was about to ride, I felt a little jealous.

"Yeah...I'm gonna, go out to where the girls are camped. Get a little more sleep."

"They should probably move into the Yankee encampment. Now that Grant...uh Sumner knows what's going on, anybody trying to leave camp to warn the marshal won't get far. It should be safe for them."

"I'll tell 'em. Hey, Hutch."

"What?"

"When we're done...if we manage to get back to L.A. with our bodies and our shields intact...you're not thinkin' about...doin' this as a hobby...are ya?"

Hutch's mouth hung open for a moment before he mounted the horse. I stepped back, watching the animal dance in a circle before Hutch reined it in.

"You know I thought about it, Starsk." Hutch said. "But I think I like my reality better."

"Take it easy." I said, watching the blonde man in a butternut uniform ride down the hill and into the grassy plain. I wouldn't see him again for eighteen hours, and though I didn't know it at the time, I felt like I was the little brother left behind at the homestead while big brother went off to war. Not knowing if he'd be back, as a whole body or a corpse, or something somewhere in between.

Watching him ride off was hard. Knowing he was riding into the unknown was harder.

Both armies were ordered to take the day to plan, organize and break camp. After dark fell we were to start a forced march toward the town and, if all went well, evacuate the buildings, then start a siege. Sumner had said something about Vicksburg, and a few of his men paled at the name of the town. Whatever had happened there, I had a feeling, would be happening here in twelve hours.

Part of my job would be to get to the girls, tell them the plan, and see what they could do to prepare the civilian population.

Walking four miles had rubbed my back so raw that once I was out of sight of the camp I took my jacket and shirt off, letting them both dangle from the belt around my waist. The air against my back stung at first, then soothed, making the walk a little easier.

I stuck to the tree line until I began to smell smoke from a fire and pulled at least my shirt back over my shoulders. I found the tent, the fire, a pot of stew sitting by the coals and the camp deserted. It was hard to tell but I didn't figure there had been a struggle. The girls must have been out getting firewood, or even sleeping inside the tent.

Being made of canvas and tent poles there wasn't much to knock on, but I tapped my knuckles on the ridge pole and quietly said, "Sadie? Darcy? It's me, David."

There was no response and I carefully parted the top of the split in the canvas, just enough to see inside. Nobody...and no bodies. They had to be out getting firewood I decided, or water, or any of the other primitive living things that had to be done.

I felt like an interloper in their camp. Hungry, but not willing to dig into the stew pot. Tired but not Goldilocks enough to sleep in their beds. I noticed the stack of firewood a minute later.

More than enough to keep the fire going through the day, and the girls had known that this would be their last gathering.

The more I thought back I remembered vaguely hearing the girls talk about leaving the tent, their clothes, their belongings...anything that might be a memory jogger. Did that mean they'd already left? Would they be so foolish? Or worse...had they ventured into the town, maybe thinking they could rouse the citizens to action...in case the two armies didn't come through.

I circled the clearing trying to spot something that might tell me where they'd gone, but knowing that I could no more track two girls through the forest, than I could an elephant.

"Darcie! Sadie!" All that answered me was the wind through the trees. I searched their tent, trying to remember what they'd had before and see if anything was missing. Trying to think like two scared women, planning to infiltrate a town...on a Sunday.

I searched everything and found no Bible. There had been baskets, too, I remembered, one with Darcy's dried herbs and one with sewing things in it. Both of those were gone.

They'd gone back to town, I was sure of it. But maybe, maybe they weren't there yet. Maybe I could catch them, head them off. The pot of soup was still hot, still steaming faintly. It couldn't have been removed from the fire for very long.

There was a chance.

* * *

Sadie

"Franny, Hilda, Bette, Yvonne, Tracy. That's five. Maybe Becky and Alice. That's seven." I said, breathlessly holding up seven fingers to show Darcy. We kept to our brisk walking pace, our baskets hung effortlessly from our wrists as we tromped through the still wet grass.

"The blacksmith and his wife." Darcy said, and I was about to run out of fingers. "But we won't get Mr. Weatherly. His general store makes more money than any other place in town."

"What about the doc?" I asked, stepping around a gopher hole and scanning the border of the open field. "He wanted to leave when Nancy passed, but he's so sick now."

"We'll get him out. It wouldn't be right to leave him here." Darcy said, her face determined. "How many is that?"

"Uh...ten."

"That's not a lot."

"It's barely a crowd," I said, "And we need an army. What about Ken and David?"

"Do you really think that if the armies don't come through, those two will?" Darcy snapped, then slowed her pace, and gave me an apologetic glance. "As much as I'd love to believe in them, Sadie-."

"I know." I said.

"I mean who can we trust?"

"Just us." I said.

We were getting close to the treeline, and to the forest path that would wind past the river and over a stone bridge, one of two ways to get to town without coming down the main road.

Since we'd been kicked out of the town, the woods had started to feel more and more safe. Like a natural fortress providing enough cover and winding paths and dark alleys to keep us out of sight. Give us fuel, food, life. I was thinking about the city. Wondering if we would ever again feel at home there, when I heard a hoarse voice shouting for us to stop. I spun around to see David tearing across the field at a dead run. Once he saw that I had turned he started to slow, then limped to a stop sinking to his knees in the grass thirty feet away from us.

His whole back arched then swayed with the rhythm of his lungs and as I got closer I could tell he was fighting nausea. He stopped us with a hand before either of us could touch him and I looked to Darcy who pulled a wine bottle of boiled and cooled water out of her basket. She set it in the grass in front of him.

As he reached out a shaking hand to grab it he rasped, "Don't go." He swallowed, worked the cork out of the bottle and managed a mouthful of water then said. "Not yet. Not alone."

"We're better off alone. Your partner said it himself, you stick out like a sore thumb."

"No...you don't understand. Oh god…." David paled, and dug his fingers into the grass like he suddenly had to hold on to avoid falling off the earth. He lowered his head to the dew covered grass and for the first time I got a look at the back of his white, muslin blouse.

Blood, and something that looked like pus, caked the shirt in splotches. Some of it was dried and old, some of it fresh. There wasn't a single tear, not so much as a pinhole in the shirt, yet his back had to be covered with sores.

It explained the pain he'd been in the night before. The nausea he was feeling now. I knew that kind of pain. I knew it far too well, and I knew there was nothing that I could do to help him get past it.

"We can't stay here." Darcy said, shooting me a look.

I nodded and bent to lay my hand against David's wrist, above the red marks from the rope and low enough that I wouldn't hit anything else painful. "Can I help you? Please?"

David lifted his head and nodded, gritting his teeth and pulling one of his legs up under his torso. We got him up and into the woods as quickly as possible, moving at the pace he set until his breathing recovered, his face regained some color and he pulled away from us to walk on his own.

The limp was pronounced but it didn't stop him from walking, and it seemed the least of his concerns. He started talking about his partner, about the conversation they had had with General Grant and about the plan. Yet it seemed there was still a great deal he didn't know.

"This is all crazy." Darcy said finally, pulling our group to a halt in the middle of the pathway, her voice rising. "None of this is going to work. It's a lot of wishful thinking and optimistic madness."

"Darcy, I hate to break it to ya, but disappearing into the woods for five years so that you can play "pretend it's the olden times" is even more mad. Letting men die when medical advancement could have saved them, when the police could have protected them. Letting one man terrorize an entire community of people because all of you trusted him to follow rules he set, and didn't take your own safety into account. That's madness."

"Now children…" The voice came from the path, and when I snapped my head toward it I felt like I would faint. The reverend stood at the foot of the stone bridge, flanked by some of the marshal's deputies. "Such hurtful accusations on the sabbath are hardly in keeping with the holy laws."

"You wouldn't know a holy law if it bit ya." David snapped angrily. "What were you before you came here? Sex maniac? A two-bit thief?"

My eyes widened and I stared at David, feeling my heart drop to my stomach. He couldn't have known. There was no way he could have found out, could have made the connection, could have possibly discovered the truth in so little time. Had he guessed? Was he merely reacting?

The reverend cocked his head to the side, mind racing, probably doing the same logic puzzle that I had done.

"H-he doesn't know." I said, my voice shaking. Tears were spilling over my lips as I pleaded. "He doesn't know. No one knows."

David snapped his head toward me, then looked to Darcy, then back to the reverend and the men behind him. I heard Dave whisper something so softly I could have misheard it.

"It's an outlaw camp."

"He doesn't know!" I said, louder, grabbing Darcy's sleeve. She'd taken a stance, digging her heels into the leaf cover, and I knew it meant she wasn't going to back away but I needed her with me.

"He knows." The reverend said. "He knows like Walter knew."

The reverend began to fish under his robes and I reached out to yank on David's shirt. The cloth must have begun to stick to his wounds because it clung to him for a second, then tore away. David stiffened, eyes widening before he stumbled backward. One of the deputies took it as an attempt to run and pointed his gun at David's head.

Darcy screeched, her scream blasting against our ears in the same moment that the reverend pulled the length of rope from behind his robes. Without warning Darcy charged under the gun pointed at David, swinging her basket like a club. The reverend went after David, oblivious to Darcy's attack. I went after the final man, defying my every instinct to run and charging toward him with my hand on my Bible, the heaviest thing I was carrying.

The man didn't expect an attack from a woman. I could see that much in his eyes. He suddenly didn't know what to do with his gun and brought it up across his chest. I pounded the Bible, spine first, into his nose, then grabbed the barrel of the gun and followed the man down until he hit the ground. The back of his skull bounced off the stone surface of the bridge and his eyes rolled back.

I ripped the gun free of his hands and spun, pulling back one of the double hammers and pulling the trigger. The gun barked and jumped in my hands, but I kept hold of it.

The fight stopped. Darcy ripped the gun free of the man she had charged into. The reverend had managed to pull the noose tight around one of David's wrists and he yanked the man in black toward him in the second's lull, knocking him down with a swift, clean left to the jaw.

Breathing hard he pulled the noose from his hand then bent to push the reverend onto his stomach and tie his hands with the rope. When he stood up again his eyes were sharp, angry and pointed at us.

"An outlaw camp! Of the hundreds of stories you could have told Hutch and me last night, the one you don't mention at all is an outlaw camp!?"

Neither of us responded. There was nothing we could say in defense of ourselves except that we were scared, and that much had been obvious from the beginning.

"I can assume, I'm sure, that the founding fathers of this nice little town are all criminals. Who else?"

"The marshal and his men, the reverend, the general store owner…" Darcy began, her voice quiet. "His brother is a sold-"

"Wait a minute. The general store...Weatherly General Store?" David asked.

Darcy nodded.

David swallowed then said, "His brother...wouldn't be Captain...Weatherly?"

Neither of us responded because we didn't have to.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Gathering Part V**

Starsky

Hutch was in trouble. That runner was in trouble. The whole plan was likely to fail and now that I knew more about the people in town, there was a better plan anyway.

After we tied up the three jokers, emptied their pockets and stuffed cloth in their mouths we changed direction, beating through the woods and into the open, headed back for Yankee camp.

My mad dash after the girls had twisted my left ankle and I could feel it swelling over the top of the bucket-like shoes I had to wear. I missed my tennis shoes and blue jeans. I missed having a car and a radio and a gun under my arm. I missed knowing that help was only a radio call away and all it took was one fight going down on the streets for a dozen looky-loos to notice and report it to somebody.

I hated the country. Fresh air, trees, animals...good riddance. It was an inconvenience that I was glad to have advanced beyond. I was glad to live in a city where a collection of bad guys living in a commune wasn't called a 'gathering'...it was called a prison.

As we covered ground we talked about what had just happened, what had happened five years ago, and what was going to happen when we got to the Yankee camp. I only half listened to what the girls said at first, still fuming about being stuck out here, and not caring to hear justifications for the existence of this place.

When I did finally tune in I felt like a heel. And I was glad I'd kept my comments to myself.

"I was a drug addict, David. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get away from it. Darcy was a nun, she tried to get me to join the convent but….then she heard about this place. A place to get clean and stay that way. And she said that she would go with me. Leave the order and stay with me until I was strong enough to go back."

"But by the time you were strong enough, the marshal had his hooks in ya." I said, not allowing the pace to slow. Not for my ankle, and not for their guilt ridden admissions, as much as I wanted to.

Sadie nodded and Darcy spoke, "We didn't know what it was. Not until my friend...not until someone who was close to us disappeared without a trace. We began to dig, and we shouldn't have."

"How many more are involved?" I asked.

"Most of the men and women who own businesses or make money from the town came there to keep from being busted again. Some of them weren't so bad. The doc had spent fifteen years in prison, and he just wanted a quiet place to practice, even though he'd lost his license."

The way Sadie talked about him it sounded like the Doc had been a blessing to the town, and not a curse. That meant he'd probably lost his license due to a drug charge rather than malpractice.

"Selling prescriptions?" I asked.

Sadie gave me a stunned look and nodded. I smirked at her and was rewarded with that smile again.

We crested a hill and the expanse of white tents lay before us, sweeping down into a valley and back up to the command tent. Men were working everywhere, breaking down canvas, gathering in circles to work with black powder and muslin bags, or cleaning and stacking weapons. There was a hot fire blazing a good distance from the guys working with the powder. Raw, soft lead went into a pot and came out a spout in liquid form, trickling into a mold. Before my very eyes these men were making ammunition for the coming battle. A battle that I now had to put an end to.

It took me twenty minutes to explain to Wyatt Sumner what had been going down in the town for the past five years. He seemed genuinely surprised by it, but accepted it quickly and began to alter the plan accordingly. While I sat under the tent fly, one of the girls soaked a cloth in cold water and helped me wrap it tightly around my ankle.

"Can you...spare a horse?"

"Your history with horses leaves much to be desired." Sumner said, with characteristic dry wit. "But there's a supply wagon heading to confederate camp soon."

I got to my feet, tested my ankle and decided that sharp pains were going to have to do.

"Sumner...I need to go to the authorities. If any of those men in town are there illegally, just being outside the parameters of their parole gives us authority to make arrests. We could avoid a fight and maybe even keep this...gathering from being shut down. But I need to get to my car."

Sumner thought for a moment then nodded his head. "Alright. But I'm sending a man with you."

"I'll take him. Send another man after my partner, he has to know what's going down."

"I'll be leaving within the hour with that wagon. I haven't heard from General Johnston yet this year, and now I'm beginning to think I know why."

I didn't know who Johnston was and didn't remember meeting him while "captured" on the Confederate side but it didn't matter. Sumner taking the trip meant fewer people had to know all the secrets of the town before we had some control over it.

While Sumner's men saddled a horse for me I went to check on the girls. I found them with a group of adjutants folding pieces of paper into thin tubes. These were the tubes that the men in rank filled with powder and jammed down the muzzles of their guns. Tubes that I hoped none of them would have to use.

Darcy and Sadie looked up at me expectantly and I felt strange telling them that I was leaving. Depending on what went down it was possible that I wouldn't see them again. "I'm uh...I'm headin' out. Sumner's getting me a horse to borrow and I'm going to ride out to where I parked my car."

Darcy stared at me for a moment then nodded her head. Sadie's face fell a little and she focused intently on the tube in her hands.

"I'll be back though," I lied. "With reinforcements. Maybe I'll...grab a burger or something on the way, bring it to ya."

Sadie's head came back up and she gave me a half-smile and I grinned back. "Stay with the general and the two of you will be alright." I said, then turned.

"I'd rather have a cup of coffee...in a paper cup. And a donut." Sadie said, and I turned to see hopeful blue eyes searching mine.

"Coffee and a donut. You're a cheap date."

Her smile blossomed into something radiant and I had a hard time turning away from her and facing the mangy horse they'd brought up for me.

I fully intended to bring a donut and coffee to the golden haired lady. I even knew the exact cafe I was going to get it from. I rode out of camp with a man calling himself Tom Yost, getting the feel of the second horse I'd ridden in my life and running the pad of my thumb over the emblem on my car key.

I wouldn't see Sadie, Darcy, the camp or my partner for another fifteen hours. That included a two hour horse ride to a deserted, dirt road lined with cars, horse trailers and trucks. The radio in the Torino wouldn't send beyond the mountains which meant driving back toward the city before I could call for help. The Torino had been blocked in by a pick-up truck and trailer and we had to hotwire and play musical cars with a number of vehicles before I could get the Ford out onto the road.

I ran out of gas a mile from the nearest town and had to walk to the station, wake the manager, convince him that opening his station on a Sunday and selling gas to a cop was a very good idea, then walk back to the Torino. I might have blown through the little town a bit fast, got gas in the next town and went as swift as the Torino's tires would take me, finally reaching Dobey on the radio.

His first comment was, "You boys give up on rough livin' already?"

I gave him a laugh then got down to business and before long he was taking notes. There had to have been a solid stream of guys with folders in hand running back and forth between Dobey's office and R&I. At least three of the people the girls named had outstanding wants or warrants. The rest could probably be held on suspicion long enough for us to come up with something on them.

"And this marshal guy, what's his name?"

"Nobody seems to know, Captain. They all refer to him as 'the marshal'. You get a sketch artist on the line I can give a preliminary description." I let static fill the car for a moment then hit the send button again and said, "At this point it doesn't matter. We got him on assaulting a police officer."

Dobey paused then asked, "Did he know that this police officer was a cop when he assaulted them?"

"If he'd known that it'd probably been attempted homicide, not assault."

"Attempted?"

"I don't kill easy, Cap."

When Dobey came back on the line I heard the tail end of a chuckle. "I've got a sketch artist heading down to my office. What's your ETA?"

"Probably another hour. There are about three hundred people out there Captain, not counting the 50+ in the town. We're going to need an army of our own to sort through this mess."

"Hmm...you say this marshal assaulted you."

"Dragged me behind a horse by my wrists and called me a horse thief."

Dobey's voice came back quiet, and angry. "Are you alright?"

"I will be." I said.

"Then our main focus will be on the town, and these men that the girls were able to name."

"What about the civilians?"

"If they aren't wanted by the police, and have legal right to be living there, they can stay or go as they please."

I smiled. "I know one lady in particular that will be delighted to hear that, Captain."

"You know I should be ordering you to a hospital."

"Why? Somebody I know there?"

I didn't stop at a hospital, but I did swing by my apartment. I was stiff after driving for two hours without a break, but I took a shower in five minutes, and avoided looking in the mirror while I dressed. Jeans, cotton shirt, leather jacket, tennis shoes. God did it feel good. I grabbed the donuts on my way to the station and arrived in time to meet with the sketch artist and correct the sketches of the men we would be going back to the town to arrest.

I laid out the battlefields and the town to the best of my memory, showing where the paths to the woods were, where people might run to if they scattered and where the best place to land a helicopter might be. The helicopter was brand new to the department. The moment I perked up at the thought of riding in it I was told by Dobey that in no uncertain terms was I allowed anywhere near it.

I felt that was a little unfair but there wasn't time to argue about it. Like in the camps, the precinct turned into a staging area for a war. I was able to avoid it until Dobey handed me a bullet proof vest and stood watching me, waiting for me to put it on. I finally convinced him that I would put it on when we got closer.

By four o'clock in the afternoon the helicopter had already taken off, headed for a field beyond the town. I led a caravan of officers, all-terrain vehicles, a meat wagon and two ambulances back out of LA, bound for the gathering.

It was dark by the time we got to the country road, clogging it with our collection of men, firepower and vehicles.

At first I wasn't sure it was the same section of road I'd left from. Every trailer, ever car, every truck that had been there was gone.

It was going to take even longer to get out to the camps, and then the town. The all-terrain-police-vehicles took to the grass without a hitch and I climbed into a police jeep with five other guys.

The Yost guy that had ridden out with me to the road had split too, along with the two horses.

Even before we got to Yankee camp I knew it wasn't there anymore. At a distance there had always been a low haze of campfire smoke drifting over the camps like fog. That haze wasn't there, nor the faint glow of firelight and lanterns, nor the sounds of the men.

I redirected the caravan toward Confederate camp instead, expecting to find the same thing. I was right, but for one minor detail. Every stitch of canvas, every tent pole, every pot and pan had been taken. But there was a noose hanging empty from one of the trees. The loop was too small to fit a neck through, and too low to effectively hang a man. It was, however, at just the right height for a man's wrists.

I tore the rope down and limped down to the Jeep, thrusting it in front of the headlights. There was blood, some of it still damp, caked into the rope. I had some of it on my fingertips and palms.

I stepped up into the jeep and signaled for the men to continue on, giving the driver directions toward the forest and the town. 300 hundred men. 300 hundred men didn't just disappear, not in today's modern world, they didn't.

300 men made noise, left signs, took up room. The closer we got to the town though, I felt like I'd been living with ghosts. Half a mile away from the town we stopped the vehicles, dismounted, and crept in a long, staggered line toward the town.

No one could have slipped past us without our noticing, even in the dark. They had to have heard us coming through the brush and the grass. But there were no shouts, shots, screams...nothin'. Not only were those 300 men somehow gone, but my partner with them.

It was suddenly very hard to breathe, my back raging at me more painful than before. We pushed into the town and stared at the damage that 300 men worth of bullets had done to it. There was hardly a window left in any of the buildings. The general store had half a roof on its porch, the supports completely chewed through. The barn looked like it'd caught fire at some point, the back quarter of it black with soot and reeking of melted paint.

The only building that looked even remotely whole was the Justice Hall. The closer I got I realized it was also the only building with a light burning.

I broke into a run, dashing towards the building until I could see the door and a single name scrawled on it in white chalk.

"Hutch!"


	6. Chapter 6

The Gathering Part VI

Hutch

"So then what happened?"

"Well, Weatherly jumped me. You know, I hadn't made the connection between the name on the general store and the captain up until that moment. He had out his pistol and he tried to shoot me with it. I dived out of the way and-"

"And cracked your head on a tent pole." Starsk blurted.

I felt my face flush involuntarily and spared a glance toward Darcy, who was grinning at me. "Yeah...something like that. But anyway, all of Weatherly's men were set to trounce me. Weatherly had me tied to the branches of that tree and they were going to turn me into a human pinata."

"And then General Grant came..to SAVE the DAY!" Starsky shouted, louder than necessary, and drawing the attention of a couple trying to eat their dinner in relative peace.

I moved Starsky's glass of beer a little further away from him and continued the story. "Now General Grant, he came riding up on a white horse, followed by a wagon full of supplies and ammunition. He had General Johnston with him, that was my general, and they pointed their guns at Weatherly and his goons and told him, "Surrender or be shot.""

"He wasn't really gonna shoot 'em." Starsky whispered to Sadie, burying the comment somewhere behind her right ear. She didn't seem to mind, and even giggled.

"No, but the threat worked. Weatherly was so surprised to see Grant, and the men he had with him, he took off."

"To warn the town."

"Right, to-"

"That we were coming."

"Starsk…"

"To SAVE the DAY!"

I sighed and decided that Starsky had already heard the story enough times, and turned my full focus on Darcy. She gave me a patient smile and waited, the perfect audience.

"Weatherly took a few guys with him, but most of the men didn't like what they'd seen him try to do to me. That wasn't what they'd been coming to the gatherings for. When Grant showed up, with Johnston at his side they fell in with the plan. Since we knew that Starsky had gone for the police-"

"To save the day..." Starsky slurred, lips pressed against Sadie's cheek.

"We figured our best bet would've been to sit tight and wait. Except that Weatherly knew too much. We were losing the element of surprise-uh-uh Starsk...my beer."

"Oh, sorry." Starsky who had settled drunkenly into the embrace of Sadie, took his foot off the table, narrowly missing spilling my beer a second time, and blinked at me. "So then what happened?"

"So then we decided that the plan should go on ahead, but faster. We sent the cavalry to the town so that they could help with the evacuation once we hit the place. All the men were ordered to use blanks only until we were able to clear the town of people. Then we were going to riddle the town with bullets."

"Riddle me this-"

"No, Starsky, riddle, pummel, destroy."

"So then what happened?"

"I'm gonna tell ya. After we got the cannons set up, and let me tell you Darcy, there is nothing more majestic than a cannon crew that knows what they're doing. Smooth, efficient, time tested. Those men could put out two rounds a minute without even trying. We started to let the town really have it. The civilians started screaming, tearing around, running from the buildings. Our cav guys were there, heading them out of town and into the woods toward safety. In less than ten minutes the only people left in town were the bad guys. All holed up in the Justice Hall."

"Truth and Justice for Hall!" Starsky added. "Hey, tha's not right."

"We let loose. There were bullets flying everywhere. You couldn't hear a thing after that first volley. Bullets were bouncing off bullets, tearing through trees, turning curtains to swiss cheese. We made those buildings as unlivable as possible and then some. But...we didn't touch the Justice Hall."

"Why not, Hutch?" Darcy asked, her hand tightening in mine under the table.

"Because we wanted to take them alive. And the longer we hid in those woods tearing up the town, the more shotguns and pistols we saw flying out of the windows of that hall."

A high pitched whistle came out of my partner, much like a bomb falling from a great height, that ended with an explosion sound. He kicked his foot up at the explosion, once more almost upsetting my beer.

"Starsky, please, quit interrupting."

"So then what happened?"

I sighed and continued my story. "Well I picked some likely men, made sure they had loaded weapons, and we made a team entry into the building. The marshal, his name is Todd Jones by the way, and the rest of his cronies were all there, unarmed. Of course...they thought they were just going to be run out of town and sat there begging us to save their lives. The boys in blue and gray took over, shackled all of them together and I introduced myself."

"And then you and all those boys came back to the camps." Sadie said, continuing the story.

"Well, not all the boys. We had to leave a few behind to keep the prisoners from getting ideas. But most of the men returned to camp and finished packing up their belongings."

"An'they disappeared into th'mist, never to be seen again."

"That's Brigadoon, Starsky."

"They went to Bridjadoon?"

"We decided, the generals and I, that there wasn't much point in all of them being detained by the police. Running the risk of losing their hobby because some delinquent ex-con decided to set up shop nearby. The two armies just...moved along. General-uh-Wyatt Sumner promised to look us up-Starsk...Starsky."

"Hmm?"

"Wyatt Sumner promised to look us up once the gathering was over this year."

"Oh thas'nice."

"And then you came to get us." Sadie said, bright pink in the face. Starsky's head had disappeared below the table and I sighed, kicking his foot. Starsky reappeared, dragging his bad ankle toward his chest, suddenly as red in the face as Sadie had been.

"Behave, Starsky."

"You know we heard the battle from the camps." Darcy said. "When the lull came we were practically holding our breaths waiting to see who had won."

"It wasn't much of a contest." I said, smiling. "We brought you ladies back to the town so that Starsk here and the rest of the cops would be able to find us without having to search all over that field."

"And then we lit a fire in the justice hall." Darcy said.

"And we cozied up to it." I added, grinning, close enough to smell Darcy's perfume.

"And wrapped a warm blanket around our shoulders." Darcy purred.

"Very warm blanket…" I said, close enough to smell the chap stick on her lips.

"And mm-"

"Ow-mm! Starsky-"

Blue eyes sparkled at me from across the table.

"Behave...Hutch."

* * *

Author's Note:

First, the idea for this came from my love of the hobby of civil war reenacting. From 2005 to about 2013 I dressed in a wool uniform, disguised myself as a male soldier, and went out with the men of the 5th Kentucky to fight for our rights.

Reenacting itself began soon after the end of the war, but as a remembrance march at the major battlefields. Veterans gathered to honor their fallen comrades and remember the battles they had survived. In the early 1930s, on one such anniversary, a man with a recording device was present and recorded older veterans doing what is known as the Rebel Yell. This recording can be found reproduced on Youtube and is something of a treasure for reenactors and historians alike.

In the 1960s the hobby had a resurgence with the advent of the 100th anniversaries of the battles. Given the frequency of communes in the 60s and 70s, it occurred to me that it was entirely possible for there to exist a group of reenactors or living historians who turned a normal weekend reenactment into a month long event.

I will, however, stress that modern reenacting is plagued with stringent rules that would never allow the events in this story. To the detriment of anyone taking pictures, all events usually have an ambulance or fire truck standing by. Some battles even require the participants to be searched for live ammunition. Makes for a safer reenactment of course, but it takes away from the authenticity.

Finally, a name briefly mentioned in the end is that of Tom Yost. A friend, former police officer, and reenactor, Tom was my mentor while he was alive and is dearly missed.

If I'm permitted, I dedicate this story to his memory.

Thanks folks!


End file.
